18 June 2009
Maputo — About 1,500 workers have lost their jobs in recent months because of the closure of timber companies in the northern Mozambican port of Nacala.
According to a report in Thursday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias", these companies were obliged to halt production because of a drastic reduction in demand for timber on the world market, thanks to the current recession.
In late 2008, there were 14 companies in Nacala exploiting, processing and exporting timber. Eight have now closed, and even the remaining six are facing severe financial difficulties.
Carlos Chequele was once a worker in the Mozambican port and rail company, CFM. When he was laid off, after twenty years of work, he received a golden handshake of two million meticais (over 75,000 dollars), which he invested in a sawmill.
Chequele told "Noticias" that he had invested other money in tractors and trucks. His company, Manor, was fully licensed by the Nampula provincial agriculture services, and employed 32 workers. But now they are all unemployed.
"Everything was lost, and I'm now in poverty", he said. The collapse of the market meant that the buyers of sawn timber, such as construction companies, were now trying to dictate prices.
The buyers "won't agree to buy the timber at our prices", Chequele said. "They want the wood dirt cheap, supposedly because they cannot sell their products at the same price they did three years ago".
Several of the other companies that have closed (such as Lan Hay, Dong Fa, Fu Chin, and China HK) were owned by Chinese, Malaysian and Korean businessmen, most of whom have now left the country.
Other companies that used to provide services to the timber workers have also run into difficulties. Amélia Mabombo opened stalls selling food to timber workers.
"When the timber business was at its height, I used to sell 300 meals a day in each of my stalls", she said. "But with the closure of the timber processing factories, many workers were sacked and I lost my clients". Now timber workers are no longer queuing up for her food - and so she is gambling on opening a guest house offering rooms for long distance truck drivers.
The chairperson of the Nacala Timber Operators Association (AMNAC), Aurelio Sardinha, said the crisis had taken his members by surprise, and some of them are now facing legal action because of debts to the banks, arising from the loans they had taken to invest in timber processing equipment.
Sardinha said that, given the difficulty in placing sawn timber on the international market, the companies would now switch their attention to furniture production for the domestic market, particularly in Maputo. But this will entail heavy transport costs.
The crisis means that huge quantities of logs are piled up in Nacala, awaiting processing. Exposed to the sun and the rain such timber soon loses its quality. The director of the Nacala district economic activities services, Jorge Tomo, said that some of this timber was now good for nothing but firewood.
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